


savour the silence

by crypticgemini



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Claustrophobia, Drabble, Gen, Heavy Angst, Paranoia, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, sometimes you gotta give a fictional teenager your paranoia to cope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 08:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18465118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crypticgemini/pseuds/crypticgemini
Summary: He isn’t safe anywhere.He wonders if safety is even real, anyways.





	savour the silence

He can’t remember the last time he felt safe.

 

Obviously, he feels safe at home, even more so when May is in viewing distance from him. The windows locked shut because it's always so cold in the apartment but heat costs so much. The door held closed by three locks: two of them being deadbolts and the other one being a latch. The building itself is protected by five different security guards in shifts, shifts that Peter had taken upon himself to know by heart. The structural integrity of the building is the best it ever will be, nearly perfect. The only building code violation is that the handrails on the stairs don’t connect to the wall.

 

But he knows he isn’t _truly_ safe. He imagines things that he never would have thought about before Spider-Man, before Ben, before everything.

 

The windows are shut.

_Windows can be broken._

 

Everything is locked up.

_Locks can be picked._

 

The door is closed.

_Doors can be smashed._

 

There are security guards in the lobby.

_Guards can be taken out._

 

The building is up to code.

_Ceilings can collapse._

 

The building is fully supported.

_Ceilings can collapse._

 

The ceiling can’t just up and collapse for no reason.

_Ceilings can collapse on top of you and suffocate you until you can’t breathe you’re being crushed you can feel your ribs crack underneath you and you’re choking on sawdust thats filling your lungs and you can’t breathe and-_

 

He isn’t safe anywhere.

He wonders if safety is even real, anyways.

 

_Your protectors can die._

 

He puts on the suit and exits the apartment from his window whenever he has that thought. He mutes Karen against her recommendations and lets his senses guide him through the city. He listens for the telltale signs of trouble, danger, an innocent person asking for help. As the sun goes down he might have stopped a mugging from happening, maybe he checked up on a couple of people who weren’t looking so hot because he knows they need the reminder that someone cares. The night varies and is never the same as the night before it.

 

Peter wonders if May feels safe. Wonders if she lies awake at night, waiting for the moment when something goes wrong. Wonders if she keeps a weapon in her nightstand out of fear for the day when she might need to use it. Wonders if she can hear every footstep on the pavement outside at all hours. Wonders if she imagines any of those footsteps belong to someone on their way inside the building, up three flights of stairs, and five doors down the hall.

 

When Peter’s cheek finally hits the pillow on his bed, he tries to block out the whirring of mechanical wings that aren’t there, and he tells himself that he’s safe.

 

He never believes it.

 


End file.
